When art binds a couple

Nonika Singh

Manu Parekh and Madhvi Parekh are easily one of the most-celebrated art couples in the country.  Both had retrospectives of their works at the prestigious National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, only recently. Only a few artists who have tasted success like they have are as grounded as them. Simplicity oozes out of their persona and their words, which are spoken in Hindi, a language they are most comfortable in. In Chandigarh at the invitation of Punjab Lalit Kala Akademi, the duo go back in time to the point where they started and the journey to the top without even a hint of boastfulness.

Art world

Manu keeps the conversation going and recalls how he wanted to train as an arts teacher till he was told — why don’t you become an artist, a vocation he had no idea existed. Admission into JJ School of Arts, Mumbai, and for a while all that was being taught washed like water over duck’s back! Today, of course, he knows (and quotes) Paul Klee and Picasso like the back of his hand and feels.  “If you are an artist you have to arrive through the either door.” Klee, in particular, has inspired him greatly. Manu reminds, “Here was a man who could have become a singer or a poet, but chose to be a painter and all his works have a sense of rhythm and lyricism.”

Interestingly, Manu’s theatre background too reflects in his works. In fact, theatre is the reason why he chose to turn from figurative to figureless abstracts. Before that befuddles you, let him elucidate. “I was doing theatre with Jaswant Thakore. He would ensure that when the curtain goes up for 30 seconds the stage remains empty, so audience could soak in the ambience and same thing happened after the play was over. Both acts were reminiscent of the fact that something will happen / happened here.”  In his canvasses too, absence becomes a presence and though you don’t see figures you can feel that someone has just walked down the path. 

Internal journey

Compared to Manu’s academic journey Madhvi’s has been more internal. Engaged when they both were children, aged 12 and nine, respectively, it’s not just the marital knot that has tied them together but also artistic bonding. Of course, when she first announced that she wanted to be an artist, Manu could easily have been dismissive. Instead, he realized her innate talent immediately. Today like an indulgent and proud husband, he can’t stop praising her and other self-taught artists such as the late Bhupen Khakhar.  He professes, “Unlike trained artists like me, those who have not gone through the travails of academic training are more imaginative and imbued with greater risk-taking capability.”  He has seen Khakhar simply erase 15 days of hard labour and his wife dump a work if it didn’t appeal to their sensibilities.

However, what really makes an artist both feel, “is genuineness of purpose and intent.”  Besides, the ultimate resolution to art, he asserts, has to come from one’s roots and Indianness.  If Madhvi attributes her understanding of art to folk images she encountered in her childhood days, he goes back to time spent in Kolkata, where he became a Koltkattan overnight! Over the years, the cultural mosaic of West Bengal, the Durga Pooja, the Sindoor Khela and much more assimilated in his being. Not that these were transferred directly ever. As he says, “When I make heads, I am actually creating an expression and when I paint expressions I end up creating situations.”   Be it Bhagalpur blindings or Benarse landscapes… you always get more than what you see.

nonikasingh@tribunemail.com